Title: Home from America
Author: Sharan Newman
In: Death’s Excellent Vacation (Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Family, Paranormal fantasy, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 24th November 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Gollancz
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: In the gray light of morning the plane slid down through the cloud cover and the O’Reillys got their first glimpse of what for them was the Promised Land.
Patrick has always dreamed about he home land. And been incredibly self-conscious about his height. Now he finally gets to go “home”. What he finds is nothing like what he expected.
I have always wanted to find out more about my ancestors. But I can’t say that I’ve ever had wonderful, powerful imaginations about them. After all, I’m probably from farm folk or some such. Even though I would love to go and see England and Scotland, I don’t think it would be like coming home. Which made it interesting to read a short story that featured a young man who was so desperate to live in and move to a country that he had never laid eyes on because he thought he was from hero stock.
Pride is never really a good thing. If we’re being honest here. And Patricks’ pride in this short story leaves his vacation at a pretty grisly ending. He is too proud to love his family for who they are. And he is certainly too proud to stay and listen and learn. Rather, he wants to be a hero and from more “impressive” ancestors. I really don’t understand that, and I’m kind of glad that he got his comeuppance. He was a bit of a weeny in this tale.
I love that this story dealt with family and pride. Leprechauns and the Luck of the Irish. The whole story was fun and had me smiling as I turned the pages. It wasn’t quite what I expected from the title. But it was most definitely a tale that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Earth and Skye 
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